Inman Park Realty was created as a project for agents considering DBA (doing business as) branding. As a DBA experiment, IPR didn’t generate the interest we had hoped for. But it did set in motion the process to extend the Inman Park Realty experiment into areas that have yet to be tried …

An old friend from college (a dentist) feels compelled to send me rants about the real estate industry. As if his industry doesn’t have its own overly priced, unnecessary procedures! But one particular recent rant was very different. It was well-written — a rarity for sure — but it was really the tone that set it apart …

“Excuse me, what did you say?” When a real estate agent relocates to Atlanta and hears the term, “little r,” for the first time, they are often confused. In truth, wherever they were from, the idea of living in a two-“r” world never crossed their mind …

The real estate industry finds itself at a branding crossroads. The traditional franchise template has turned sour. Many agents find the usual “personality-branded” approach of independent brokerages not that helpful to their businesses. In too many instances, an agent’s choice in brokerage affiliation is one between the lesser of two neutrals, neither of which speaks to them directly …

It started as an exercise in branding. As we watch a questionable lifestyle brand being packaged as presidential timber, it crystallizes just how much our society has become brand mad. Truth and reality have always taken a back seat on Madison Avenue. …

Urban legend says: maintaining relationships within a high-rise can yield an agent $20,000 to $25,000 a year. I recently had a young agent ask me how she could “get in on that?” As I was about to impart wisdom, she was distracted by her phone and spent…

Other than politics, it’s hard to imagine another industry that relies so heavily on false narratives. If something is said often enough, it must be true. Repeated often enough without rebut, and it becomes fact …

The real estate industry, with its franchise hierarchy, isn’t well-positioned for today’s brand-conscious society. Franchise brands can be very fleeting. Agents spend their marketing dollars trying to establish themselves, only to be dwarfed by the fra…

In 2008, the least expensive monthly fee for a sales agent in Atlanta to have brokerage affiliation was $110. Throw on board dues and, in some cases, franchise fees, and, at best, an agent was looking at $150 a month for something they might not use …